


Thin Socks and Thinner Walls

by thankyouforthemusic



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, One Shot, Summer of mutual pining, and im still sorry, i still dont know the first thing abt skating/injuries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-23
Updated: 2018-07-23
Packaged: 2019-06-14 19:01:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15395334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thankyouforthemusic/pseuds/thankyouforthemusic
Summary: “Ah! I almost forgot,” and Viktor came swooping back into the main room, just as Yuuri was making to stand. “I don’t really want to kiss your feet, no offense to you, so this will have to do,” and he was talking too quickly, his accent was back and it was heavy now, and Yuuri was really confused by the comment about kissing his feet, and suddenly Viktor was kissing his forehead.Viktor was kissing his forehead.





	Thin Socks and Thinner Walls

Yuuri hid his gasp of pain behind the cuff of his sweater, as he pulled off his skates as delicately as he could. His feet were read and swollen, and tiny cuts and scrapes were scattered across the skin. He was used to the bruises and blisters left behind after a long day of practice at the rink, of course, but he never bled this much. Cursing quietly as he found the source of the problem (his too thin socks that he had grabbed by mistake in his haste to get to the rink on time this morning), Yuuri quickly pushed his skates aside and eased his feet into his black trainers carefully. 

Yuuri glanced around and thanked his lucky stars that Viktor had run to the bathroom. He didn’t want his coach (idol? friend?) to see how bent out of shape he was after a simple day of training.

He would just have to make it back to the inn without limping too much, and then he could quickly wrap his feet, and they’d be healed by the morning. Hopefully. 

Yuuri could already feel anxiety churning in his stomach and rolled his eyes. Of course he was going to get all worked up over nothing; it was just some shallow cuts on his feet, nothing new. Which he knew, of course, but it’s not like his anxiety ever listened to reason.

When Viktor returned from the bathroom, they headed to the front of the rink, waving to Takeshi on their way out. The jog home consisted of Yuuri hiding the searing pain in his feet as Viktor rode on his bicycle a few paces ahead, calling over his shoulder occasionally for Yuuri to keep up, which was most definitely not helping Yuuri’s sour mood.

Luckily, by the time they reached the inn, Yuuri’s feet were numb and he couldn’t even feel the friction on his open cuts as he trudged past Viktor, who was tucking away and chaining up his (stupid) bicycle, and into the inn. He was immediately hit with the smell of his mother’s cooking and instantly felt all thoughts of the pain in his feet leave his mind. 

Yuuri shucked his shoes at the genkan and went straight to the kitchen to see what his mother was making for dinner, not even bothering to put his slippers on. He distantly heard Viktor fumbling behind him, as he wiggled out of his shoes and then stepped up onto the higher ledge that led into the main room (Yuuri remembered quite clearly the first time he told Viktor that he wasn’t really supposed to step on the lower floor of the genkan in his socked feet before stepping onto the main floor, and the ensuing display of Viktor’s lack of balance off the ice as he nearly fell on his butt in his attempts to follow Yuuri’s directions) (Yuuri also remembers failing at hiding his laughter at this spectacle and Viktor’s subsequent pouting mouth and blushing cheeks). 

When Yuuri emerged from the kitchen after greeting his mother and helping her prepare his and Viktor’s meals, he noticed his coach sitting alone at one of the low tables in the empty main room, scrolling through some app on his phone and petting Makkachin. After Viktor had been barred from entering the kitchen on multiple occasions to help out with dinner (because Hiroko insisted that he was a guest despite his long-term stay at the inn), he usually just sat and waited for Yuuri to eat dinner with him. 

It struck Yuuri how lonely Vikotr looked, slumped over the table with a tired look on his face and staring boredly at his phone all alone in the large main room with just the company of Makkachin, and Yuuri wondered not for the first time, what Viktor’s life in St. Petersburg must have been like.

Yuuri made his presence known by stepping loudly into the room and saw Viktor’s face light up when he saw Yuuri. But it was probably because he was holding a tray of food and that Viktor was hungry, Yuuri told himself, already fighting off a blush. He went to sit next to Viktor, knowing he meant no harm, which he knew quite certainly at this point. Viktor wouldn’t hurt a fly- literally. Yuuri had watched him shrink away in terror from a mere fruit fly that had gotten trapped in the kitchen just last week and remembered (albeit secretly) the time the Russian man had chosen to sleep in the main room of the inn on a zabuton instead of his large bed simply because there had been a tiny spider on his wall.

Viktor thanked Yuuri for the wonderful food, and Yuuri redirected the compliment to his mother, who deserved the praise since she had cooked the food. Viktor called his thanks to Hiroko in accented Japanese as she passed them on her way to the front of the inn to help Toshiya close up for the night.

Yuuri and Viktor ate in companionable silence for awhile, sitting on the same side of the table and facing the muted television, which was playing a rerun of some soccer game. Yuuri shifted slightly, taking as much weight off of his bruised feet as he could, as the numbness faded away and the pain slowly came back. He would probably have to wait to shower until the morning when his feet were healed, and lamented to himself over the fact that he’d have to go to sleep feeling dirty and covered in dried sweat.

“Yuuri, you’re hurt!” 

Viktor’s exclamation broke Yuuri out of his thoughts and he looked up in surprise to see his coach staring at his uncovered feet. Yuuri glanced down and cringed as he saw that is too-thin socks were soaked through with blood. The jog home must have done a lot more damage than he thought, and Yuuri had been too preoccupied with shoveling as much food into his mouth as possible to realize he wasn’t wearing any slippers and his bloody foot was mere inches from Viktor’s knee.

Yuuri jumped and drew his legs close to his chest, hiding his feet in the cuffs of his sweatpants.

“Um- I. Yeah, I put on the wrong socks this morning and my skates chafed my feet a bit too much, I guess,” Yuuri said honestly, looking anywhere but at his coach. “I’m fine, though, I’ll wrap them lat-”

“Let me,” Viktor interrupted, already standing up and making his way to the cabinet with the gauze and bandages (he knew where it was from the time Yuuri had to wrap up his elbow after a nasty fall on the ice).

“What- no! It’s fine- you don’t have to, Viktor. I was going to after dinner,” Yuuri said as he attempted to stand as well, but his feet got caught in his sweatpants, and suddenly there was a warm hand on his shoulder, keeping him in place.

“I know I don’t have to, but I want to,” Viktor said softly from somewhere above Yuuri, and the hand on his shoulder became heavier for a moment as Viktor used him as leverage to drop down and sit beside him again, facing him now. “I’m your coach, and your friend, Yuuri, and I want to take care of you. Will you let me?”

And he was genuinely asking for his permission to wrap his feet- to touch him, Yuuri realized as he stared at the man in front of him. Viktor’s eyebrows were raised and he was holding up the gauze like some offering to go along with his question. Yuuri’s expression softened, and he nodded, shifting so that he was also facing Viktor and pulling up the cuffs of his pants to expose his feet.

Viktor quickly went to work, gently peeling off the thin socks, wincing whenever Yuuri winced from the pain and apologizing profusely. 

“I’m going to get a towel and warm water to clean away the blood, ok? I’ll be right back,” Viktor said and was gone before Yuuri could even respond.

He came back as quickly as he had left, with a small bowl of water and a damp rag from the kitchen.

“This might sting,” Viktor warned before delicately pressing the rag to Yuuri’s left foot.

And sting it did. Yuuri hissed as the warm water and rough texture of the rag met the open cuts on his foot. Viktor’s thumb rubbed soothing circles into his ankle from where he was gingerly holding Yuuri’s foot in place with his free hand. 

Viktor continued, slowly and carefully washing Yuuri’s feet until all the dried blood was gone and Yuuri’s feet were left a bit redder than before, but certainly much cleaner. 

Yuuri watched as Viktor quickly unwound a long strip of gauze before wrapping it expertly around Yuuri’s foot, from toe to ankle. 

When Viktor moved to his other foot, Yuuri moved his gaze to study his coach’s face. Viktor looked focused and determined, a small line between his brows that Yuuri had noticed only showed up when Viktor was worried (he’d seen it a few weeks ago when he had fallen and cut open his elbow, and that one time Makkachin had gotten a bit too excited about her walk and ran into a wall, and whenever Viktor came face-to-face with any insect). 

Without thinking, Yuuri reached out and poked the line with his thumb, rubbing softly until it went away. At that point, Viktor was looking at him, his eyes wide and his lips parted.

“Oh,” Yuuri gasped, and pulled his hand away, brought it to his mouth instead and bit at his fingernails- nervous habit. He watched Viktor’s eyes follow the movement, before he chuckled and smiled gently, and Yuuri noticed with a jump in his stomach that the tips of Viktor’s ears were pink.

“All done!” Viktor exclaimed a moment later, with a final pat to Yuuri’s knee before he gathered his supplies and stood to put them back where he found them. 

“Thank you, Viktor,” Yuuri said once the other man was in front of him again, his expression open with a soft smile curving across his lips.

“Of course, Yuuri,” Viktor said, returning his smile. “Do you feel any better?”

“Yes, much better,” Yuuri said honestly. His feet still stung a bit from the warm water, but when he shuffled them on the floor in between himself and Viktor, there was no immediate pain. He wiggled his toes and watched the bandages around the top of his feet move. He supposed for the rest of the night and into the next morning, he would have the feet of a mummy, and scrunched his nose up at that thought.

When he looked back up, Yuuri noticed that Viktor was looking at him contemplatively, and he felt his cheeks flush slightly at the attention. The crease was back between Viktor’s eyebrows. 

“Yuuri,” Viktor said softly, and Yuuri tensed at how serious he sounded. 

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

Yuuri blinked back at Viktor for a few seconds and then blew out a breath and drew his legs back up to his chest, resting his chin on his knees. “I just- I didn’t want you to think…” he trailed off and sighed again, dropping his legs to cross them in front of himself before shrugging.

“I didn’t want you to see how beat up I was after just a simple day of practice,” Yuuri said all in one breath, his eyes trained on the bandages wrapped around his feet. He was too tired to make something up, and the tone of Viktor’s voice compelled him to be honest.

“Yuuri,” this time Viktor’s voice was full of disappointment and Yuuri couldn’t blame him, he had made quite a fool of himself.

Viktor let out a sigh of his own and shifted to mirror how Yuuri was sitting, their knees only inches apart.

“Yuuri, look at me.”

At Viktor’s request, Yuuri looked up and shocked at how close and how intense Viktor’s blue eyes were. He looked determined again, but slightly less worried. After a beat, his gaze softened and a soft smile curved across his lips.

“Do you remember what I told you last week, at the beach?” he asked. 

Yuuri blinked and took a moment to think. “That the sound of the seagulls reminds you of St. Petersburg?”

Viktor laughed a little too loud at that, rousing Makkachin, who was napping under the table with her head on Viktor’s thigh. She whined and moved to sit behind Yuuri instead.

“No, not that,” Viktor said, still chuckling. “I meant… when I said that you weren’t weak. You aren’t weak, Yuuri,” and Viktor had that intense look in his eyes again, determined and focused, like he wanted Yuuri to understand and believe him.

“And we were talking more about emotional strength at the time, sure, but you are not weak physically either, Yuuri. You were in pain today after a long day of practice and the wrong socks- for a skater, that’s a big deal,” here Viktor gestured to Yuuri’s bloodied socks lying on the ground beside him. 

Yuuri just stared at Viktor with wide eyes, nodding slightly in understanding. He had told himself as much on the way home, trying to calm his nerves and stop his thoughts from spiraling dangerously into self degradation, though it hardly ever worked. But hearing these assurances come from someone else made the shame and embarrassment that had been curling in his gut for the past few hours lessen slightly.

Viktor sighed and scratched at the back of his neck before continuing, his voice even softer than before. 

“What I’m trying to say is… I want you to know that your well being will always be more important to me than a full day of practice. You don’t ever have to prove anything to me, Yuuri, I already know that you’re an incredible skater- I’ve known that since the very first time I saw you skate.” 

Viktor was smiling his dazzling smile, but Yuuri could see that it was completely genuine and that made it so much more effective. His cheeks were quite red by now, from Viktor’s words and the soft look in his eyes. 

“So, the next time you’re in pain, tell me?” Viktor asked, a note of pleading in his voice. “I would never dream of holding judgement against you for it. Do you believe me?”

And he sounded so hopeful, so sincere and of course Yuuri believed him. 

“Yes, I do,” he said, his voice shaky but certain. “Thank you, Viktor, really, it means a lot.”

Viktor was quiet for a beat, looking as if he was trying to understand what Yuuri had said, almost like he was confused. But the moment passed, and he smiled again, the corners of his eyes crinkling and the tiny dimple in his left cheek making an appearance. It was Yuuri’s favorite smile.

“No need to thank me,” Viktor said and before Yuuri could protest, he stood up and gathered their empty dishes. “Now, I’ll clean up and you should get to bed, rest up for tomorrow. We’ll do weight training in the morning to give your feet a break and see how you feel in the afternoon. And wear thick socks!” Viktor called from the kitchen, in what Yuuri had deemed his coach voice (it sounded rather ridiculous: for some reason, there was always less of an accent; or perhaps it was just a different accent, Yuuri couldn’t really tell, but it reminded him of how British radio announcers talked).

“Ah! I almost forgot,” and Viktor came swooping back into the main room, just as Yuuri was making to stand. “I don’t really want to kiss your feet, no offense to you, so this will have to do,” and he was talking too quickly, his accent was back and it was heavier now, and Yuuri was really confused by the comment about kissing his feet, and suddenly Viktor was kissing his forehead.

Viktor was kissing his forehead.

“To help you feel better,” Viktor said simply, as if that answered any of Yuuri’s questions or calmed his racing heart. Viktor’s ears were pink again, which Yuuri thought he’d really like to see more often.

Yuuri stared up at Viktor for what felt like an eternity, before he finally stood up. He could feel the blush burning on his cheeks, but he didn’t care much, nor did he care about the goofy smile spreading across his face. He nodded in acknowledgement of Viktor’s well-wishing.

“Well, um…” Viktor started, then paused, his ears pinker and fighting off a smile himself as he rubbed the back of his neck. He cleared his throat before continuing. “Good night, Yuuri. I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said cheerily.

“Good night, Viktor,” Yuuri said quietly, still smiling softly.

Viktor nodded and then made his way out of the main room, turning once he reached the threshold to smile over his shoulder once more before he was gone.

Yuuri exhaled loudly into the silence he was left in, rubbing his hands over his face. He shook himself slightly and quickly walked to his room, pausing only to turn the lights off and call Makkachin after him.

As Yuuri lay in bed, thinking of Viktor’s pink ears and soft lips and his dazzling smile, he couldn’t help but smile widely into his pillow like some high schooler thinking of their first crush.

See you tomorrow, Viktor had said, and Yuuri truly couldn’t wait- his hatred of weight training be damned.

**Author's Note:**

> Viktor's definitely the type of person who is deathly afraid of all bugs ok (read: i honestly just funneled my irrational fear of bugs into vik). Thanks for reading!!
> 
> pls yell at me @vctor-niliforv.tumblr.com


End file.
